Text and context in translation

Abstract

While
research on texts as units larger than sentences has a rich tradition in translation
studies, the notion of context, its relation to text, and the role it plays in
translation has received much less attention. In this paper, I make an attempt
at rethinking the relationship between context and text for translation. I
first review several conceptions of context and the relationship between text
and context in a number of different disciplines. Secondly, I present a theory
of translation which is to be understood as a theory of re-contextualization
that explicates the relationship between context and text in its design and
categorial scheme. Finally, I sketch a recent development in translation and
multilingual text production, which may limit the scope of re-contextualization
in translation.